Lu Zhou still remembered that…
At the very beginning, the system revealed to him that when all of his disciplines reaches level 10, he would unlock the world…
Which meant he could choose what the system’s “Future Era” would be like.
Lu Zhou hadn’t thought about what the future should be.
A few months ago, when he opened the golden legendary mission card, he was so excited he couldn’t sleep all night.
Now that his mathematics had reached level 10, he was already 10% on the way to the future, closer than ever before…
Lu Zhou took a deep breath and looked at the sunrise in the distance. He clenched his fist, then gently relaxed.
The feeling of excitement was real.
But as opposed to the pure excitement and adrenaline, what filled his heart was enlightenment.
It was as if he could sense what the system was trying to tell him about the so-called Future Era…
…
After Lu Zhou bid farewell to the old man on his morning walk, he turned around and went home.
Lu Zhou went to his study room on the second floor and sat down at his desk. He first checked his email.
More than an hour had passed since he sent the email, and Professor Faltings had yet to reply. Lu Zhou thought Faltings must be busy with something or didn’t know what to reply with.
Lu Zhou shook his head and smiled. He leaned back in his chair and opened his laptop.
Then, he drank a bottle of the system’s Energy Medicine as a celebration for his victory. He felt the fatigue fade away from his body as he began his work for today.
With Xiao Ai’s assistance, Lu Zhou spent the entire afternoon converting his content on the draft paper into his computer.
The finished thesis was 40 pages long, which was more than he had expected.
In addition to the unification of algebra and geometry, this also contained a framework outline of the future of mathematics, as well as some conjectures he discovered when researching this problem.
The supplementary content alone was enough for a special issue in the Future Mathematics journal.
In fact, if he had some time, he could prove most of these propositions. He already had some brilliant ideas to solve these problems.
However, this wasn’t the main theme of the paper.
After all, there were endless amounts of problems.
Instead of wasting time on unimportant problems, he would much rather spend his time on significant propositions.
As for the rudimentary problems, he would leave that to future scholars…
After Lu Zhou pressed the enter button, he leaned back on his chair.
He didn’t have to wait for long.
The second his paper was uploaded, a familiar blue dialog box appeared in his sights.
[Congratulations, User, for completing the legendary mission!]
…
His paper was uploaded at noon.
For most parts of the United States, it was a bit past midnight.
The brightly lit Clay Institute formed a sharp contrast to the quiet, dark suburbs.
As a non-profit private academic institution, the main purpose of the institution was to promote and spread mathematical knowledge and to give awards and grants to potential mathematicians.
Unlike other pure mathematics research institutes that had to worry about funding, this institute seemed to worry about the opposite.
Like right now.
Director Deaton was sitting in his office. He was worried about how to get rid of money.
Ever since Riemann’s hypothesis was proven at the International Congress of Mathematicians, they had been worrying about awarding the Millennium Prize Problems money.
Not because they didn’t have money, but because the winner of the prize was a special person.
The Yang-Mills Equations and the Navier–Stokes equations; this guy had already solved Millennium Prize Problems!
And he was about to win another win.
Not to mention it was for Riemann’s hypothesis, arguably the most valuable problem of the seven.
It was almost like this award was exclusively set up for him!
If that was the case, it would be fine.
It was just an award; it didn’t have to be given to different people.
However, Professor Lu wasn’t fond of accepting awards, and he was almost annoyed by them.
Not to mention that Lu Zhou wasn’t lacking in fame nor money. Last time, he didn’t even bother to collect his award for the Yang-Mills Equations. Instead, a physicist from Lu Zhou’s institute received the award and a million-dollar check for him.
The entire Clay Institute, from the advisory committee members to the security guards, was all discussing whether or not the award should be issued…
“Enough! I am no longer the chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board. You should find a more capable scholar to take on this position! Don’t always throw your problems at me!”
Professor Carlson’s voice traveled from the director’s office.
When he heard Director Deaton plan on throwing this responsibility to him, he was furious.
Director Deaton looked at Professor Carlson. He didn’t want to bother this almost-retired old man.
However, when he thought about the status of the winner and how hard it was to give Lu Zhou an award, he couldn’t help but try to persuade him.
“But our research institute is highly prestigious, and you’re the only qualified person to do this. You’ve interacted with him before! Please! I beg you! I swear this is the last time!”
Deaton was helpless.
He never imagined so many troublesome events would happen during his time as the director.
The Millennium Prize Problems implied it would take an entire millennium to solve.
These problems were considered to be impossible to solve within the century. Who could have known that someone would solve three in such a short period of time?
If these problems weren’t selected by the top scholars in various fields, he would have started to wonder if the Millennium Prize Problems were a hoax.
“Actually, this isn’t as difficult as you think. The International Mathematical Union recognizes his proof, we just have to…”
Professor Carlson said angrily, “Just give him the damn award then!”
Director Deaton said, “But… But we have tried to give him two awards, and he didn’t even bother coming to the second award ceremony…”
Carlson: “Then don’t give him the award!”
Deaton: “But that’s against the rules…”
Carlson said frantically, “For f*ck sake! Then what do you want to do!”
The roar in the office reached the corridor.
Coincidentally, a trainee assistant in his thirties was about to enter the office. However, he was alarmed by the shouting. He quietly pushed open the door and went inside.
He stared at Professor Carlson and hesitated for a while. He then gulped and spoke.
“Professor Carlson…”
Professor Carlson was in a bad mood. He looked at the new assistant he hired not long ago and said, “What? Tell me.”
The assistant quickly spoke.
“A while ago, Professor Lu posted a paper on arXiv. You’re following that research direction, so I received a reminder.”
Professor Carlson: “I know, I’ll look at it in the morning.”
The assistant knew Professor Carlson would say this.
However, he didn’t give up.
He knew that if he let Professor Carlson go to sleep tonight without reading the paper, he would get scolded tomorrow.
The assistant gulped and spoke.
“Actually, I read the paper abstract.
“Because of my knowledge level, I can’t give you an accurate assessment of the paper. However, considering the fact that the paper is related to Riemann’s hypothesis, I decided to print the paper. You can take a look if you like… No offense, but I think you’ll be shocked when you read the paper.”
Shocked?
What could be more shocking than Riemann’s hypothesis?
Professor Carlson raised his eyebrows.
Even though his mathematics intuition told him that the new assistant was full of sh*t, he still took the printed paper from the assistant’s hands and read the abstract.
Director Deaton was interested in what the assistant had to say. He leaned over and read the paper together with Carlson.
Then…
The two didn’t stop reading.
The clock on the wall slowly ticked.
That was the only sound in the office.
After a minute went by, the silence in the office was broken by the two’s exclaims.
“Jesus Christ…”
“Oh my god…”
“This… this is…”
Professor Carlson could feel his throat getting dry. He grabbed his teacup on the table. After taking a sip, he realized his cup was empty.
“The great unification of algebra and geometry…” Director Deaton said with a raspy voice. He looked at the abstract and said in disbelief, “Does this mean, h-he did it?”
“At least that’s what he claims…”
Professor Carlson’s throat moved as if he wanted to say something. He looked back at his assistant and said, “Call the Harvard Institute of Mathematics! Contact Qiu Chengtong for me.”
“Okay!”
The assistant looked at his boss’ serious face and nodded.
However, when he was about to leave the office, Professor Carlson stopped him.
“Wait a second, did you drive here?”
“I parked in the garage… Why?”
“Forget about the call, take me to Harvard! Now!”
Professor Carlson stuffed the paper into his pocket and immediately walked out of the office.
Director Deaton immediately snapped back to reality and spoke.
“What a second, about the Riemann’s hypothesis award—”
“We’ll talk about that later! This is more important!”
Forget about Riemann’s hypothesis…
Even if one added up every single conjecture related to Riemann’s hypothesis, it wouldn’t be as important as this paper.
Professor Carlson disappeared from the office, leaving Director Deaton behind…
